Can anyone weigh in on the best resource for learning nodes. I can kick my way around with nodes, but I think its time to really learn them for real. With Denis' plugins they represent to much power for me to continue to use hafl-baked.

-sf

shrox

04-27-2010, 01:18 PM

Can anyone weigh in on the best resource for learning nodes. I can kick my way around with nodes, but I think its time to really learn them for real. With Denis' plugins they represent to much power for me to continue to use hafl-baked.

-sf

Agreed, I need to learn too.

goakes

04-27-2010, 01:26 PM

+1

MentalFish

04-27-2010, 03:48 PM

+1 on training for nodes. Wes, you reading this? :D

SplineGod

04-27-2010, 04:10 PM

That would be a good topic. Theres so much latitude it would be a lot to cover. I could see something like this being an ongoing class or series. :)

monovich

04-27-2010, 04:20 PM

definitely a good idea for a series. I thought for some reason there would already be one.

The way people are using nodes for things beyond surfacing boggles my mind. The displacement, motion modifiers, image filters, etc etc are all really interesting.

recently I saw one where particles formed one object then spread out and formed a second object, all with nodes. I want to do be able to conceive solutions like that.

I'll pay!

GregMalick

04-27-2010, 04:59 PM

For the basics on Texturing, I found Intro to Nodes (http://www.kurvstudios.com/lightwave/introduction_nodes.php) to cover them pretty well.
Especially since James covers replicating some layered surfacing by using nodes.

3d4me did a number of videos on using nodes for FX:
http://www.spinquad.com/forums/showthread.php?t=25031

Cageman has done a number of cool Node tutorials:
http://www.newtek.com/forums/showthread.php?t=96703
http://www.newtek.com/forums/showthread.php?t=102507
http://www.newtek.com/forums/showthread.php?t=101725
Do a search on Cageman... too many to list.

Finally, it's about time that Larry did an advanced node surfacing video tutorial. Maybe even a separate tutorial based solely on DPKit.

zapper1998

04-27-2010, 05:43 PM

For the basics on Texturing, I found Intro to Nodes (http://www.kurvstudios.com/lightwave/introduction_nodes.php) to cover them pretty well.
Especially since James covers replicating some layered surfacing by using nodes.

3d4me did a number of videos on using nodes for FX:
http://www.spinquad.com/forums/showthread.php?t=25031

Cageman has done a number of cool Node tutorials:
http://www.newtek.com/forums/showthread.php?t=96703
http://www.newtek.com/forums/showthread.php?t=102507
http://www.newtek.com/forums/showthread.php?t=101725
Do a search on Cageman... too many to list.

Finally, it's about time that Larry did an advanced node surfacing video tutorial. Maybe even a separate tutorial based solely on DPKit.

Agreed 120%

UnCommonGrafx

04-27-2010, 07:56 PM

Somewhere, back when nodes came to be in LW, I went looking for this kind of info. At that juncture it was clear I wasn't going to find anything LWavey on the topic so why bother?
I went looking for Node tutorials at google: found millions, obviously. Who CARES what program it was done in with nodes; the only point is whether or not your nodalness has the nodes needed for the described flow. I think a lot of the programs out there can teach us a lot. And if we can REALLY do nodes, then we get to look at 3D programs and compositors for insight. Devvers can look at it for inspiration in their node developments.

LW has nothing to offer of depth in this area, as regards tutorials. The guys on those sides that convert their material to Core will have access to a goldmine: us. There's my marketing gem for the day.

TeZzy

04-27-2010, 08:38 PM

keep an eye out for 3d4me's stuff

http://spinquad.com/forums/showthread.php?p=267247#post267247

hrgiger

04-28-2010, 04:20 AM

Wasn't there supposed to be a book coming out for nodes in 9.x? Did that ever appear?

CORE is definitely going to be a good opportunity for trainers out there when it comes to using node based systems.

Tobian

04-28-2010, 06:22 PM

You mean my video? I'm comfortable with some of the more advanced surfacing setups with nodes, and I have done some pretty complex setups with weight maps and direction vectors and such for my plasma animations, but the types of stuff people use nodes for outside of surfacing blows my mind! Once it gets beyond the visually obvious I find it very hard to get my head round!

The other problem I find with the types of cool experiments that 3d4me does is it shows up some of the severe limitations in LW: you have to do a lot of pre-planning, and it's difficult to get LW to generate polygons nodaly, which is where a lot of the power can come from.

I've often thought about doing some node tutorials, but they are quite complex to set up and in reality the 'right' settings are arrived at from quite a lot of experimentation beforehand :D (that and I don't always actually know what I am doing :D)